Criss Cross Bouquet Tying

If you liked yesterday's post on the basics of tying a bouquet you may be interested in this, only slightly more difficult way to embellish your bouquet. This criss cross method uses a second color of ribbon to add some extra color and style to your bouquet. Start the same way you did for the basic bouquet, but before adding your pins you will add in your second ribbon.

I started with a 2.5 yard piece of purple ribbon and pinned it in the middle to my base ribbon. Then you wrap each side around the stems crossing each other as you go.

Rather than pinning a straight line down the back of this bouquet variation, I chose to only pin in the center of each crossing section on the back of my bouquet (this will be facing the person holding the bouquet).

The front of the bouquet is finished at the bottom, by tying a bow where your ribbon ends cross. If you choose, you can leave the ribbon ends as long as you like or trim them shorter. I think leaving the extra long ends has a luxurious feel to it, so I typically don't trim them off.

As with all bouquets, this one is finished off by trimming all of your stems to the same length.

Basic Bouquet Tying Technique

This may be what we think of when the word "bouquet" comes to mind. If you have wedding plans in the mix, though, you may be just as concerned with ways to tie your bouquet! This is a tutorial for a very basic way to tie and wrap your bouquet to create the lovely handle seen below.

This handle is simple in that it is simply overlapping ribbon with some decorative corsage pins inserted in a line down the back.

Here are some supplies you may find helpful in doing this tutorial yourself: Ribbon, floral tape, scissors, corsage pins, and floral wire (you will of course, also need a lovely bouquet of flowers).

To start, arrange your bouquet in any way you most prefer. For this tutorial I used real flowers, but I love the versatility of using paper flowers with wire stems, so be sure to check back for a tutorial that is more specific to handmade flowers with wire stems later on. You will want to remove most of the leaves on the stems that are located where you will be making your handle. Leaving the stems on makes a lumpy surface for tying your ribbon.

Once you have your flowers arranged, tightly wrap your stems together with floral tape. This will hold your bouquet together tightly and be a good "canvas" for your decorative finish. If necessary, you can use a piece of floral wire, or some rubber bands to hold your stems together while you tape them tightly.

I recommend taping your stems as far down as you plan on wrapping your ribbon, as you can see above. At this point, you can trim the bottoms of your stems to an even length, or you can wait until you are all done with your pins and ribbon. Just make sure that your final piece has stems that are all one length, or your finished bouquet will look a little sloppy.

Now you are ready to wrap your ribbon around your stems. I generally start by using a piece of waterproof tape and taping the end of my ribbon up at the top of my stems and wrapping the ribbon downward. GO as slowly as you need, just try to wrap your ribbon tightly around the stems to avoid puckers and gaps. Once I get to the end of where I want my stems wrapped, I work my way back up to the top with a second layer of ribbon wrapping. This ensures a more even coverage and leaves you with both ribbon ends at the top of your bouquet. Since the bottom of your bouquet is most likely to be seen, it helps your finished look by having all ends at the top.

Now, you will add your corsage pins. It isn't necessary to pin all the way down, but it can give a nice finished look. TO space evenly, I lined up my pin tips with the tip of the leaf in front of it. It can take some practice to get a straight line (I'm not used to using shaped pins, so as you can see mine could use a little work). If you are just starting out, simple pearl corsage pins are easiest to line up.

Voila! Here is a bouquet all tied and pinned! You can use any color and width of ribbon you prefer, along with any color and shape of pins you can find. If this seems a little plain for your taste, be sure to check back over the next couple weeks as I will be giving tutorials on several ways to embellish your bouquet handles, and different materials you can use for tying them all up.

Paper Calla Lilies

Hey everyone! I'm super excited about this tutorial, as I have been toying with these flowers for over a week now trying to get them just right. I was actually unable to find any other tutorials online for making paper calla lilies, though I did see several lovely varieties on image searches. Hopefully I managed to do these beautiful flowers some justice :)

To start out you will need:

Paper in the color of your choosing (I used Lokta Fiber paper from Paper Source)
floral wire
scissors
pencil (for lightly tracing template onto your paper)
lily template (I suggest printing it out onto card stock for easier tracing)
Sculpey clay in a color of your choosing (or some other stamen, if you come up with a better idea please share it!)
floral tape
glue


You will want to print out the following template in your desired size. The great thing about making paper flowers is you can make flowers any size you want, large or small no matter what size they come in naturally.

Once I have decided on the size of flowers I am making, I start my whole flower making process on these by first making a bunch of stamens for my lilies. To do this I twist a length of floral wire to give myself a small stem, then I use Sculpey clay (available in most art and craft stores) to shape my stamens around one end of my wire. Calla lilies have really easy stamens, as they are just a long cylinder you roll out on a flat surface once you have inserted your wire. I generally make a short, fat cylinder, then insert my wire, then roll to desired length. From one package of Sculpey clay I can get about 8 stamens that are about 4 inches long and 1/4- 1/2" wide. Follow the baking instructions on your clay package to bake and set your clay.

Once you have your stamens made, it is time for the flower petals. Trace your template onto the paper of your choice. A thinner paper works quite nicely for these, as there is a lot of bending and these look a bit better without hard folds and creases. A crepe paper would work nicely, if you can find it in sheets as opposed to streamers. Cut out your petal, being careful to try and cut slightly inside your lines to avoid any pencil on your final flower.

Now, you will get to start shaping your petals. I use my fingers to start gently bending the paper into my desired shape, like so:

If you have a stiffer paper, you might want to use the back of a spoon and rub it over the surface of your paper to soften it a bit. I have a burnishing tool from a college printmaking class that I use for this, but you can also just rub with your fingers to make your paper fiber soften up and become a bit more mobile. Once you get your basic shape, you will want to shape the bottom of your flower into a cone and glue it in place.

I tend to make a perfect point at one end, as shown above. The insert the stamen, I will snip just a tiny bit off to make a hole that the wire can pass through.
Once your glue dries, you end up with this shape, a petal ready for some final shaping and a stamen:

To shape my petal, I again use my fingers to gently bend and fold the petal to my desired final shape:

Now, I insert the stamen, glue it into place and wrap my floral wire with floral tape. You can also add a longer stem and some leaves if you want to :)

I'd love to hear what you all think of how these turned out, I'm really excited about them!

More Tissue Paper Flowers

Here is another great tissue paper flower you can make, complete with templates. These are a little fussier than the first tutorial I showed you, but they are well worth the effort. The thing that makes these so fussy is cutting out all of the individual petals, so if you want to avoid that, I'd stick with the first version for now. You could also make these from a patterned paper with more heft, these are definitely very delicate from tissue.


To make these flowers you will need:

Tissue paper in colors of your choosing
floral wire
large glass seed beads in color of your choosing
petal template (below)
floral tape
glue
small hole punch (I used a 1/16" hole punch)*
scissors
needle nose pliers (for twisting wire, also optional, I find using my fingers works just as well, but if you are doing a large number of these you may want to give your fingers a break)

*hole punch is optional, you could also use a small needle to poke holes in the center of your petals before fanning


To start, print out the following template. I have included several different sizes of the petal shape I used so you can make different sized flowers, or make a flower with petals grading from large on the outside to small on the inside. You can further change your petal size by manipulating the image in your favorite image program, or changing the size on your printer (provided your printer has a scaling function).

Trace your petal template onto your tissue paper and cut out your petals. For my flower I cut out 7 petals, all of the largest size. It can be faster to layer several sheets of tissue paper together, but if you feel you can not cut all of the sheets evenly you can do each petal separately.

Once you have all of your petals cut out, stack them together so the centers match up. They do not have to match perfectly. Use your hole punch to punch a hole through the center of all of your petals. This will be where you thread your wire stem through all of the petals.

To create a wire stem, take some floral wire and a large seed bead (I chose purple glass seed beads, you could use plastic beads or beads in another shape if you like) bend your wire in half and feed a bead onto one end. Push the bead to the center and twist the wire around the bead tightly as shown below.

Continue twisting your wire together to create your stem. I use 26 gauge floral wire when making my flowers, so I find that twisting it together allows me not only to add beaded "stamens" of my choosing, but also gives me a thicker more stable stem for my final project. Twist all of your remaining wire together until your stem is complete.

Now, thread your petals onto your stem. If using several different sizes, make sure that the smallest petals are threaded on first, followed by the larger ones.

Next, fan out your petals to create the final shape you want. Use a tiny bit of glue to hold each petal in place. You may bend and fold your petals to give more volume and shape to your flower as well.

Once your glue is dry, use floral tape to cover your wire stem. I generally overlap my bottom petals a bit, pushing them against the beaded center and making my petals "pop up" a bit more. Wind the tape tightly around the entire stem to cover all of your wire. Now your flower is done and can be put together into a bouquet or vase, or you can twist the wire around your wrist as a corsage!

If you want longer, thinner petals I also have this template: I would recommend using more petals, as these will not cover the same area when fanned out.

Happy flower making!